he loves

im standing in awe of jesus right now. he has been so faithful in the times we may not want to be faithful back.

one important thing that i believe god has been teaching me over these last couple days is that he love ME!

i know, i know you read this and go duh, katy!

well sometimes we can hear things over and over again and never understand til one day the light come on and we go 'oh i get it'

he been showing me that he STILL loves me through the sticky stuff, that he still wants to USE me even in the moments i dont think he can. he told me tonight at the presence that tonight wasn't about me, that he was going to use me tonight and i just needed to worship him.

we had two alter calls and on the first one they ask all the leaders to come down and pray, I stop for a moment as i watched other leaders head down to the altar and i thought to myself, 'oh i cant do that!' then i heard a voice saying 'i am going to use you!'

so i went. i dont know if the words i prayed were the right ones or if the person i prayed for was changed, but i know i was. i know that god was teaching me that in the moment of my weakness he is strong.

i know that god loves ME even in the sticky stuff, and when i go before him in weakness he is going to be strong.

i pray has i go through this week i will let him love me, i will let him show me how even in the sticky stuff he can and will use me!

Freedom is?

Freedom is?

When you think about freedom, what picture comes to mind? Do you picture chains breaking, walls crumbing and someone breaking through? Or is it the the quietness of standing before the ocean on a sunny day with the wind blowing through your hair? Have you ever thought that your view on freedom was different from what freedom really is?

Walking through life I don't believe I have ever felt “free” from anything. Everyday I am faced with temptation. There are issues in my life where I would think that I was free from, but then deal with the temptation the next week or month and falling back into that sin again. Was I truly free?

On this quest for freedom, I want to know what the true meaning for freedom is! Does it mean that everyday I will face the temptation, but gain freedom when I choice to not give in to temptation that day? Or does freedom mean I never have to deal with sins that I once dealt with?

The Bible promise us freedom, “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17 if there is freedom in the Lord then the answer should be simple. As long as we are in the Lord we should be free, right? That leads us to the next question, how do we stay in a consent relationship with God enough to keep us free?

What is freedom?

i stand amazed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz7GiVGTIcM

here is a youtube video that has become the theme of my life over the last day or so...here are the words, Ill write more about it later:

Lyrics to I Stand Amazed :

I bring You my heart

I bring You my praise

I bring You my broken dreams

I’ve lost along the way

I lift up my voice

I lift up my hands

I lift up the moments in my life

That I don’t understand

And I lay it at the cross

Where I’m surrounded by Your grace

And I marvel at the wonder of Your love

I stand amazed

I stand in awe

I stand forgiven in the midst of it all

Before You I bow

Before You I fall

Blessed Redeemer, Sweet Savior of all

I stand amazed

I offer You thanks

I offer my life

I offer a sacrifice of praise

When I’m scattered by the night

For You are my shelter

You are my King

You are the risen Son of God

The Lord of everything

Now I’m standing at the cross

Where I’m surrounded by Your grace

And I marvel at the wonder of Your love

There is life in His body

There is grace in His blood

There is peace for the sinner

Given by God’s grace

obstacles

yesterday i was at church, i was trying to short out my schedule to tell people where i could help where. well in the time i got a chance to talk to our youth secretary, Rose. now i love Rose and her husband Sam. they are the most Godly people i know. they love Jesus and they love people. they are also the people i know would be there if i needed anything!

Anyways on to why I have a picture of a fridge. I was talking with her and she got this picture of a fridge standing in fount of me. that it looks like an obstacles in the way, but once you open it and look inside it is filled with fruits,veggies, and meats. and that God wants to fill me up with all the goodness or him and draw me closer to him, and then once I am filled I am able to move on.

this came at such a good time in my life.

Im going to go into honesty world with you all. Over these last couple of weeks, I basically looked God in the face and told him "no, he wasnt big enough" Today I was suppose to be on my way to Colorado Springs to the YWAM base. Everything this summer and every prayer pointed to Colorado. Every detail you could think of was there. The one problem was money. I didnt have any for a plane ticket and I didnt trust that God could give me one before today. So I said no to Colorado and decided to stay home and work.

So now what? I learn that God is a God of redeeming. That while I am here, God can still do a work in my heart. He can fill me up with the things of him and then I can move on, move forward. Life is a process.

a little story

so i happen to be staying with a friend (well really she was my outreach leader for my DTS, but now she is a friend) and her husband who are living in a flat in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. They have a heart for the broken in this area.

well this church just happens to be the view outside my window. so i asked them about it.

just so happens this is the first church ever to be in Amsterdam. the interesting thing about this story is this.
way back in the day this was also the center of the trading routes. you get get sailors that would come and go from this place often. you also got a lot of the women and girls being raped because of the sailors. well they had this idea to create a place (the red light area) for when the sailors came they could just go there and none of the women in the church would be hurt anymore...its gets more interesting...back then that church had authority over ideas and everything had to be passed through them. WELL they thought it would be a good idea, because then none of the women in the church would be used in that way again......well good idea gone bad...no there is a semicircle around the church of windows where ladies are selling themselves and sex trafficking and other unspeakable things are going on 24/7
Amazing what happens when a church isnt following Jesus!

tabernacle

do you know how much work it took to build the tabernacle and then it was movable! it blows my mind how much work when into it and how exact it needs to be!

the definition for tabernacle is: any place or house of worship, a dwelling place
(thanks to dictionary.com!)

here at ywam amsterdam there is a place in the red light area called the "tabernacle" you know what its use is?
prayer and worship....all day long! Its peoples "job" here to just go to the tabernacle and just pray and worship!

they have it in dutch, english, videos with worship music, reading of the word, praying for the area, for different events, prayer and worship

I stand amazed of that place. think about how much spiritual warfare is being done!
I for one need to pray more. I know for me its one of the hardest things for me to do. Its hard for me to believe sometimes that God really does want to hear about everything, even though he already knows what is going on.

Anyways, how amazing would it be to have a place like this were people can come together and just pray and worship for two hours a day (or however long they would like)

Anyways, just some random thoughts on that.

Im in Amsterdam til Tuesday then flying back home...its going to be strange being home again!

Lawrence Family

"They might not need me - Yet, theymight. I'll let my
heart be just in slight. A word from me

- a smile maybe, precisely their necessity"
- Quote from my Great-Grand Mother

left to right: Gordon, Hazel, Christina, Ruth, Katy

its been amazing staying with my uncle here in England for most of the summer. there is

a lot about my Dad side of the family that I have been learning about. i mean sure i might have learn about some of this before, but didnt care at the time. now its like a history book!

left to right Christina, Hazel, Gordon, Ruth, Katy

i have learned about a bombing that had happen when my uncle was a small boy, that caved in the roof of their house. the roof landing on the bed my granny normal sleeps in, but was told by her mother that she should sleep downstairs under these mental tables they gave out by then for people to sleep under. so one night my granny listened to her mother and went and slept under the table. that night the bombing happened.
just little stories like that one makes history more real to me. i hated sitting in a class room trying to read out of a book what happen. i like to know personal stories!

my sister and i also got a chance to listen to a tape that my granny record for my uncle and her wife. it was strange to hear her voice. but it is something i would like to do for my kids one day!